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Foreword

The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation is pleased to have supported the policy conference and this resulting report that highlights the need to have K-12 and higher education systems work more closely together to support excellence in education. The 15 state teams that met in Kansas City last June recognized the need to break down the dysfunctional separation that traditionally has characterized relationships between the K-12 and postsecondary systems in the great majority of states.

There are encouraging signs in the 15 states that participated in the conference, and in other states as well, that inter-level isolation is waning, and that cooperation between the two educational systems is increasing, on issues like teacher quality, standards, college admissions and placement, and remedial education. Obviously, issues such as these overlap the two systems and require more inter-level collaboration.

Improving teacher education, for example, requires much more cooperation between school systems and the institutions that prepare the nation's teachers. The evidence is now confirming what respected researchers and experienced practitioners have known for a very long time, that teacher quality is the critical leverage point in improving education in America. In the conversations in Kansas City it became abundantly clear to the attending state policymakers and educators: Only when K-12 and higher education systems work closely together to support excellence and vigor in preparing educators to teach in America's classrooms will quality education and equality of opportunity become a reality for all of our youngsters.

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© 1998 The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education